Twitch Flooded with Streams of 'Game of Thrones', Porn, and the Christchurch Attack Video

After no one watched streams for Valve-created game Artifact, some users started their own meme streams. Then other content seeped in.

Trolls have flooded a section of gaming streaming platform Twitch with porn, the latest season of Game of Thrones, and footage from the recent Christchurch attack, in which a white supremacist murdered over fifty people.

The news highlights how content moderation issues aren't just limited to social networks such as Facebook or Twitter, but others that cater to specific communities as well.

But over the Memorial Day weekend, the videos streamed to the Artifact section of Twitch changed from memes to something else.

A screenshot of the stream of the Christchurch attack footage on Twitch. Blur added by Motherboard. Image: Screenshot.

On Sunday, one user streamed footage of the Christchurch attack. Motherboard confirmed the stream did contain the real, raw footage of the attack, including when the attacker shot and killed victims. Comments alongside the video included hate speech directed towards Muslims. The channel that streamed the video is no longer available on the site.

A screenshot of the stream broadcasting Game of Thrones. Image: Screenshot.

Other streams included pornography, and copyrighted and likely pirated content, such as the latest season of Game of Thrones.

Do you know anything else about content moderation on Twitch? You can contact Joseph Cox securely on Signal on +44 20 8133 5190, Wickr on josephcox, OTR chat on jfcox@jabber.ccc.de, or email joseph.cox@vice.com.

At the time of writing, the streams appear to have largely shifted back to memes, though one streamer is playing an episode of the cartoon Tom and Jerry, another is playing an episode of The Sopranos, and another is playing Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

Days after Motherboard contacted Twitch for comment, a company spokesperson said in an emailed statement "Over the weekend we became aware of a number of accounts targeting the 'Artifact' game directory to share content that grossly violates our terms of service. Our investigations uncovered that the majority of accounts that shared and viewed the content were automated accounts. We are working with urgency to remove the offending content and suspend all accounts engaged in this behavior. In addition, we have temporarily suspended the ability for new creators to stream. We take these violations very seriously and are taking measures to prevent this kind of coordinated activity on our service in the future."

Update: This piece has been updated to include a statement from Twitch.